When the sun launched a moderate, or M-class, solar flare May 17, 2012, it was still one of the largest eruptions seen since late January when our star began to rouse from an anomalously long quiet period.

A team of NASA researchers has uncovered new data showing that the sun is moving more slowly through our galaxy than previously believed -- a discovery that suggests a shock wave believed to precede the heliosphere might not actually exist.

A new chemical analysis of lunar material collected by Apollo astronauts in the 1970s conflicts with the widely held theory that a giant collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object gave birth to the moon 4.5 billion years ago.

Space scientists report they have quantified levels of radiation on the moon's surface from galactic cosmic ray (GCR) bombardment that over time causes chemical changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains similar to those that help form the foundations of biological structures.

Astronomers exploiting six years worth of data from ESA's INTEGRAL mission have pinned down the individual processes contributing to the high-energy Galactic interstellar emission produced by cosmic-ray electrons.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is a neutrino telescope that is currently being built at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. IceCube is being constructed in deep Antarctic ice by deploying thousands of PMTs (photomultiplier tubes) at depths of 4750 to 8000 feet. These spherical optical sensors are deployed on strings of sixty modules each, into holes melted by hot water drilling. Since 2005, 59 strings have been deployed and installation is expected to be complete by 2011. The strings are...

Gamma-Ray Astronomy -- Gamma-ray astronomy is the astronomical study of gamma rays.
Long before experiments could detect gamma rays emitted by cosmic sources, scientists had known that the universe should be producing these photons. Work by Feenberg and Primakoff in 1948, Hayakawa and Hutchinson in 1952, and, especially, Morrison in 1958 had led scientists to believe that a number of different processes which were occurring in the universe would result in gamma-ray emission.
These...